1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War Read Online Free PDF Page A

clan was supported by other notable clans and elements of the rural and urban masses (often a function of each clan's economic interests and holdings). For form's sake, the vying coalitions of clans set up "political parties." But in reality, what characterized Arab Palestine during the Mandate was a feudal "two-party" system with the Husseinis pitted against the Opposition. It was a struggle for power and its benefits, not an ideological clash, though the Husseinis, almost from the start, painted their opponents as collaborators with British rule and soft on Zionism. The Nashashibis, though also ultimately desirous of political independence for Palestine under Arab rule, appeared to be more "moderate" than the Husseinis, whom the British and Zionists branded as "extremists."
    Throughout the Mandate, the leading Arab families, including Husseinis and Opposition figures, sold land to the Zionists, despite their nationalist professions. Jewish landholding increased between 1920 and 1947 from about 456,000 dunams to about 1.4 million dunams. The main brake on Jewish land purchases, at least during the 19206 and 1930s, was lack of funds, not any Arab indisposition to sell.'9 Moreover, hundreds of Arabs collaborated with the Zionist intelligence agencies.20
    The bouts of violence of 19zo, 19zi, and 1929 were a prelude to the far wider, protracted eruption of 1936 1939, the (Palestine) Arab Revolt. Again, Zionist immigration and settlement-and the prospect of the Judaization of the country and possibly genuine fears of ultimate displacement-underlay the outbreak. But this time the threat was palpable: the resurgence of antiSemitism in Central and Eastern Europe had washed tip on Palestine's shores an unprecedented wave of Jewish immigration. The country's Jewish population more than doubled in less than a decade, rising from 175,000 in 1931 to 460,000 in 1939; 1935 alone had seen the arrival of 62,000 legal immigrants. A far smaller number of illegals also trickled each year into the country. In less than a decade, the Arab proportion of the population had declined from 82 percent to under 70 percent. "What Arab cannot do his math and understand that immigration at the rate of 6o,ooo a year means a Jewish state in all of Palestine?" Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive (JAE), wrote to Moshe Shertok (Sharett), director of the agency's Political Depart ment, in 1937.2 1 (Throughout the Mandate period, there was also limited legal Arab immigration to Palestine from neighboring countries, prompted by the Mandate's relative prosperity, as well as an indeterminate amount of illegal immigration, often seasonal, linked to this or that harvest. For example, according to HIS, Sz5 Arabs arrived legally from neighboring countries in 1944, 829 in 1945, and almost three thousand in 1946, most of the latter Christian Arabs recruited to serve in the Palestine police. )22
    The Zionist leaders intermittently attempted to reach a compromise with the Arabs. But none proved possible. The Palestinian Arabs consistently sought to halt Zionist immigration and demanded "all of Palestine"; the Zionists as consistently insisted on continued immigration and Jewish statehood. Ben-Gurion argued that the Jewish influx would better the condition of the Arabs as well as the Jews. Musa al- A1ami, a leading Palestinian moderate and assistant Mandate attorney general, countered: "I would prefer that the country remain impoverished and barren for another hundred years, until we ourselves are able to develop it on our own."23 And Arab nationalists outside Palestine were no more amenable to an accommodation. At a meeting in 1936 between JA representatives (Eliahu Elath, Dov Hos, David Hacohen, and Yosef Nahmani) and leaders of the Syrian National Bloc (Shukri al-Quwwatli, Faiz Bey al-Khouri, and Lutfi Bey al-Haffar), al-Quwwatli countered, "What is the use of economic well-being if we are not masters in our own home," after Hos made the conventional